Feb. 22, (EIRNS)--WAR PARTY HAS BEEN WORKING ON PREEMPTIVE USE OF
MINI-NUKES SINCE `BUSH 41.' An ongoing review of the genesis of
the new Bush Administration doctrine of preemptive first-strike
use of nuclear weapons, exposed recently in a series of news
leaks, reveals that the policy had its origin in the same
Wolfowitz-Libby-Khalilzad defense policy review, dating back to
the 1991-92 period of the immediate aftermath of Operation Desert Storm.

In a 1993 article, published in {The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists}, titled ``Nuclear Junkies: Those Lovable Little
Bombs,'' William M. Arkin warned that, immediately after the Gulf
War of 1991, a ``new constituency'' emerged: ``nuclear zealots
intent on developing a new generation of small nuclear weapons
designed for waging wars in the Third World.''

In an April 30, 1991 report,
nuclear scientists at Los Alamos floated the idea of
a new generation of mini-nuclear weapons. By October 1991, the
Reed Panel, chaired by former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed,
recommended to the Strategic Air Command that the mission for
nuclear weapons should be expanded to include use against non-nuclear foes.

The Air Force took the lead, soon afterwards,
launching ``Project PLYWD'' (``Precision Low-Yield Weapons
Design'') to pursue ``credible option to counter the employment
of nuclear weapons by Third World nations.'' On Dec. 17, 1991,
scientists from Los Alamos and Livermore briefed a joint session
of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board on the mini-nuke idea.

The proposal for deploying mini-nukes was publicly floated
by two Los Alamos scientists, Thomas Dowler and Joseph Howard
III, in an article published in the Fall 1991 issue of Strategic
Review, under the provocative title, ``Countering the Threat of
the Well-armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Small Nuclear
Weapons,'' which called for the development of three types of new
nuclear bombs, ``mini-nukes,'' ``micro-nukes'' and ``tiny-nukes.''

It all came together in the now infamous Dick Cheney Defense
Department 1992 document, ``Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The
Regional Defense Strategy,'' which endorsed the development of
non-strategic nuclear weapons for theater use:

``In the decade ahead,
we must adopt the right combination of deterrent forces,
tactical and strategic ... to mitigate risk from weapons of mass
destruction and their means of delivery, whatever the source. For
now this requires retaining ready forces for a survivable nuclear
deterrent, including tactical forces. In addition, we must
complete needed force modernization and upgrades.''

The same Cheney-Wolfowitz-Libby document, that first floated
the idea of preemptive war against any potential future military
adversary, fully embraced the idea of the use of nuclear weapons
against so-called ``Third World tyrants.''

It's therefore not surprising that the same crew,
back in power again, is toying
with the idea of using nuclear weapons against Saddam Hussein and
Iraq, according to recent news accounts of the war planning.


[Source: Washington Times, Friday, January 31, 2003, ``Bush
Signs Papers Allowing Nuclear Strikes,'' by Nicholas Kralev.]

BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE AUTHORIZED
OFFENSIVE USE OF MINI-NUKES LAST SEPTEMBER.

A Jan. 31 Washington Times article revealed
that on Sept. 14, 2002, President Bush
signed National Security Presidential Directive 17, which stated,
in part, ``The United States will continue to make clear that it
reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force--including
potentially nuclear weapons--to the use of [weapons of mass
destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.''

A declassified version of the document,
``National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,''
released on Dec. 11, 2002, did not include the specific reference
to use of nuclear weapons, but did include a vaguer replacement
formulation, ``including thorough resort to all of our options.''

The leak of NSPD-17 in the Washington Times noted, ``The
disclosure of the classified text follows newspaper reports that
the planning for a war with Iraq focuses on using nuclear arms
not only to defend U.S. forces but also to `pre-empt' deeply
buried Iraqi facilities that could withstand conventional explosives.''

The public release on Dec. 11 was followed a month later by
the Jan. 10, 2003 session of top Defense and Energy Department
officials, setting the August 2003 planning meeting at Strategic
Command headquarters, to make further decisions on the building
of a new generation of bunker-buster and mini-nuclear weapons, to
be incorporated into the new doctrine of preemptive warfare.

All of these post-9/11 actions are an outgrowth of the Bush
Administration's January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, which, for
the first time, discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons
against an array of nations, including Russia, China, Iraq, Iran,
North Korea, China Libya, and Syria.

John Bolton, a leading chickenhawk
who heads up the arms control office at the State Department,
where David Wurmser, a co-author of ``A Clean Break,''
is his special assistant,
had boasted about the new doctrine of preemptive nuclear war
in a Feb. 22, 2002 interview with the Washington Times.

Now we have even further evidence that the lunatic utopian
war-planners behind the present drive for a war in the Persian
Gulf, have been fantasizing, since the end of the last Gulf War,
about introducing mini-nuclear weapons into the preemptive war
arsenal of the new American imperium.

It has been revealed that by no later than 1991, the
Cheney/Wolfowitz/Libby utopian team, at the ``Bush 41'' Pentagon,
was not only dreaming up the idea of preemptive war against any
nation or coalition of nations that challenges American military
supremacy. They were driving a debate within the military to
develop a new generation of ``mini,'' ``micro'' and ``tiny''
nuclear weapons, for offensive use against Third World
``despots'' who might possess WMD.

The whole recent hype about Saddam Hussein's ``12 years of
violations of UN sanctions'' is all post-9/11 agitprop, to sell
the American people and world leaders on a scheme for the
preemptive use of nuclear weapons--which has been rattling around
in the scrambled minds of Wolfowitz, Libby, et al. for a dozen years.

The whole scheme was laid out in 1992 in Dick Cheney's
report to Congress, ``Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The
Regional Defense Strategy,'' which not only called for preemptive
war, but also signaled that a new generation of small nuclear
weapons would eventually be incorporated into the U.S. offensive
arsenal, with no ban on first-use.

No wonder some leading Congressional Democrats
are showing some signs of life over this issue.

This is a crucial flank.

President Bush to renounce the first use of nukes, and to
dump the gang of lunatics who are trying to blow up the world,
and bring down his Presidency in the process.

Recall that last week, Britain's Guardian, the New York Times,
the Washington Post and other newspapers, picked up on a leaked
Pentagon memo, from Jan. 10, 2003, discussing an upcoming
conference in August, where plans for the development of these
new nukes will be finalized.

For the past year, the utopian nuts in the Pentagon and at the arms control
office at the State Department, have been boasting about plans to
use nuclear weapons against Third World countries possessing WMD.

So there is much, much more at stake in this Iraq war issue than
the overthrow of Saddam, and even the provoking of the ``Clash of
Civilizations.'' Hit hard at the Cheney/Libby flank.

This is the same gang of madmen
who also are choking the Democratic Party to death,
on their dirty money.

Marc Rich is the same thing as Lewis Libby and Dick Cheney.